Western Subalpine Warbler – Levenwick, South Mainland, Shetland, 11th October 2025
Pre-amble – Subalpine Warbler(s)
By way of context here (and also elsewhere – see Western Subalpine Warbler, and hopefully, eventually, Moltoni’s Warbler!), I must explain that I had some ‘previous’ with ‘Subalpine Warbler’. The ‘species’ was split from Moltoni’s Warbler by the British Ornithologists’ Union Records Committee (BOURC) in November 2014 and ‘Subalpine Warbler’ was split into Eastern and Western Subalpine Warblers by the International Ornithological Congress (IOC) in May 2020 (and thus by the BOURC, which had opted to adhere to the IOC list from the 1st January 2018 onwards).
However, at this time, the only ‘Subalpine Warbler’ I had ever seen was a female-type bird at Spurn in May 1986 which (despite it being caught and ringed) couldn’t subsequently be re-identified to species level).
In addition, I had heard what was seemingly an Eastern Subalpine Warbler at Porthgwarra in October 2014, though this seemingly never got submitted or accepted, although it was filmed.
As such, I could no longer count the Spurn bird and opted not to count the heard-only Porthgwarra bird either, so, as a result, I had two, or three, ‘Subalpine Warbler’ species to make up post- these splits.
Narrative – Western Subalpine Warbler
As described more fully in the Blackpoll Warbler account (as this was first seen by Chris Pendlebury just two days after we had eventually arrived in Shetland), following the travel disruption precipitated by Storm Amy, we’d arrived in Shetland on Monday the 6th October (rather than, as had been originally planned, Saturday 4th October) for our annual October Shetland visit.
We collected the Bolt’s hire car, and completed a Tesco’s shop, and I never even considered the option of going for the available Western Subalpine Warbler which, it transpired, had been so since the 3rd October. Besides blaming old age, I guess it’s presence and significance had just got lost in amongst our travel chaos.
Somewhat belatedly, then, I realised that I’d stuffed up, and I began casually checking if it was ‘sticking’ each day.
The excitement around Chris’ Blackpoll Warbler definitely distracted, but otherwise there wasn’t a lot happening.
Whether this and his outstanding success influenced Chris’ thinking I’m not sure, but he decided he’d quit whilst he was ahead, and, as had originally been planned, travel home on Saturday 11th / Sunday 12th October, although our stay at Northdale had been kindly re-configured to Monday to Monday (rather than Saturday to Saturday) owing to our travel woes.
We discussed the options Chris had for getting to Lerwick (including getting the bus, cadging a lift or me taking him) but in the end as both the Siberian Thrush at Asta and the Western Subalpine Warbler at Levenwick still lingered, it became more and more obvious that I should take Chris to Lerwick, and we should take in both birds in the process. As such, I asked Andy Williams for any gen he might have on seeing the Western Subalpine Warbler, and he duly provided some excellent info which he in turn obtained from Al McNee.
Unfortunately, there was no sign of the Siberian Thrush on the Saturday morning, so we concentrated on just twitching Western Subalpine Warbler on the back of taking Chris to Lerwick for the Northlink ferry. We drove straight from Northdale on Unst to Levenwick in South Mainland via the two necessary inter-island ferries, seeing Dougie Preston and family on the second.
On arrival we parked up as Al’s directions suggested and then walked some 70m down the Levenwick road to the nearest two houses. The nearest one, on the left, was that of Dr. Will Miles of Shetland Oil Terminals Environmental Advisory Group, and, fittingly, it had a superb garden.
Although I briefly checked out the garden of the house opposite, we concentrated on the garden of Will Miles’ house, partly as it was suggested that the Western Subalpine Warbler often frequented the area around the pond which was visible in the back left corner of the garden. We produced a Chiffchaff but nothing else.
Soon after we arrived, we were joined by Andy Williams and Bob McMillan; Bob had just arrived in Shetland having flown from Inverness to Sumburgh, where Andy had collected him.
Soon after they arrived and we had all reacquainted ourselves, Chris heard and then saw the bird in the cover at the back right corner of the garden.
And soon after this, Bob again had it when it briefly showed on the adjacent fence. He ventured that it would do so again, which it duly did, and this time I was also able to get on it, albeit that my view was partially obscured by the intervening cover.
However, it then flew away from left the garden out over the adjoining field and disappeared out of sight, behind the intervening near horizon created by a change in slope in the field. This turned out to be a bank alongside an old track through the field.
Fortunately for me I surmised it might still be viewable from a gate into the field which was further along the road. I quickly moved to said gate, which both allowed me to look back along the track and, usefully, steady myself by leaning on the gate.
This enabled me to scan the bank alongside the track properly, and in doing so I was able to relocate the bird perched on top of a large rock which effectively marked the start of the bank alongside the track.
Here it showed suitably well, if briefly, as it soon flew back into the garden. We didn’t really look for it again after that. Soon afterwards we were joined by Kevin Kelly, the RSPB Sites Manager for Shetland. He was doing his rounds checking visiting birders were behaving, (or maybe he was just coming to say hello to two fellow ‘Serious Bird Bantering’ WhatsApp group members 🤣🤣 ).
In terms of appearance, it has to be said, from memory, the bird was, unsurprisingly, (given the complexities of subalpine warbler i.d.!) virtually identical to the Wester Quarff Eastern Subalpine Warbler I had seen with Andy Williams in October 2023.
As such, there is no point writing a ‘different’ description. So, here’s one I prepared earlier. The bird was most similar to perhaps an eastern race Lesser Whitethroat. It was of similar size, although it was perhaps slimmer and slighter in shape. Further, in overall terms, the plumage was superficially similar to the latter species although it had an ‘emptier’, plainer face with no hint of grey on the head, etc.. Otherwise, the upperparts were greyish mid-brown and the underparts pale brownish off-white. It had whitish outer tail feathers, but suffice to say, I wasn’t able to grill this, or the primary projection, for example (and although I did just about hear it call, I couldn’t transcribe this).
Nonetheless, it was ‘on my list’.
Western Subalpine Warbler, Levenwick, South Mainland, Shetland, October 2025 (photograph credited to Paul Frost).
